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In Germany, controversial law gives Bavarian police new power to use DNA
Police in the German state of Bavaria will have new powers to use forensic DNA profiling after a controversial law passed [May 15] in the Landtag, the state parliament in Munich. The law is the first in Germany that allows authorities to use DNA to help determine the physical characteristics, such as eye color, of an unknown culprit.
The new DNA rules are part of a broader law which has drawn criticism of the wide surveillance powers it gives the state's police to investigate people they deem an "imminent danger," people who haven't necessarily committed any crimes but might be planning to do so.
[...] move was prompted, in part, by the rape and murder of a medical student in Freiburg, Germany, in late 2016. An asylum seeker, originally from Afghanistan, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison. But some authorities complained that they could have narrowed their search more quickly if they had been able to use trace DNA to predict what the suspect would look like. Existing federal and state laws allow investigators to use DNA only to look for an exact match between crime scene evidence and a potential culprit, either in a database of known criminals or from a suspect.
In 2017, federal authorities proposed allowing investigators to conduct broader DNA profiling, but the proposal stalled after critics called for an expanded ethical debate on the advantages and disadvantages of the techniques.
(Score: 4, Touché) by driverless on Friday May 18 2018, @05:06AM (11 children)
Looking at some of the (non-technological) stuff in there, I can see that it'd be a fairly easy law to draft. They just had to go back to copies of laws they passed in the mid to late 1930s and reuse those.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @01:09PM (10 children)
They wouldn't be pursuing these laws if they weren't dealing with their open door policy to Middle Easterners. And they wouldn't be dealing with THAT problem if they weren't still trying to atone for the sins of the father.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 18 2018, @01:13PM (9 children)
And they wouldn't have needed the original laws if they weren't dealing with their open door policy to Jews, gypsies, and non-Aryans. Heard it all before, in old black-and-white newsreels, and later in Nuremberg trial testimony.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @01:42PM (8 children)
So you are equating "Jews, gypsies and non-Aryans" with criminals such as the one that precipitated this law. You know, the one who raped and murdered a German national? Interesting...
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-03/germany-must-come-to-terms-with-refugee-crime [bloomberg.com]
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/crime-spike-in-germany-puts-pressure-on-immigration-policy [pbs.org]
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42557828 [bbc.com]
I know these are all links to the fake news alt-right: BBC, PBS, and the publication rag from that far right nutcase, Michael Bloomberg.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 18 2018, @01:51PM (3 children)
Yes. That's exactly how Jews, gypsies, and other non-Aryans were presented to the German public in the 1930s and 1940s. Read or watch any Nazi propaganda to see examples.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @03:35PM (2 children)
I see. The BBC and PBS are just the same as Nazi Propaganda under Goebbels.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday May 18 2018, @04:02PM (1 child)
> I see. The BBC and PBS are just the same as Nazi Propaganda under Goebbels.
Not the same at all, by a long stretch. I don't know about PBS, but the BBC has refined propaganda to the point that it makes Goebbels look like an amateur.
The Nazis would have salivated at the level of mass manipulation possible now with our always on interconnected world. Especially a world where everything is digital, and not hardcopy, making it really easy for past information to be altered or deleted. Like the 1984 "memory hole".
When you can alter the past easily to fit the present narrative, you can build a case for any future action. 1984 was truly a manual to the people in power, unfortunately. They took the books lessons to heart, shame the masses didn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @04:28PM
Really? The BBC seems fairly facts oriented and lacking in the "opinion as news" narrative we see in the US. A quick glance at the headlines seems to indicate that as well. They do, along with US media, seem overly preoccupied with the wedding of Prince Ginger and Princess Pickaninny.
I've always thought that PBS is pretty facts oriented as well. The far right seems to hate them, however, as too left leaning.
And all this time, I've been telling people just the opposite. Anything posted online will be recorded forever. Isn't that why Europe has been whining for the "right to be forgotten"?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 18 2018, @02:17PM (3 children)
Also, forgot to add: Germany sees about two thousand murders a year, and about seven thousand rapes. Apparently as long as it was Germans doing that, this law wasn't required. However, when a single Jew... sorry, gypsy... Pole.... dammit, keep targeting the wrong ethnic group, I meant Middle Eastern person commits a murder, it becomes necessary to pass a law like this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @03:39PM (1 child)
I know you open border enthusiasts can't see it, but it's the job of government to protect THEIR citizens, not someone else's.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @08:40PM
He was talking about Germany, fool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @03:41PM
Go back and reread my links. It's a lot more than just one murder.